Mayweather vs McGregor is a disgrace to boxing

The Conor McGregor training footage released in the lead-up to his fight against Mayweather - both of his controversial sparring sessions with Paulie Malignaggi and his media workout - only confirmed that the Irish MMA star has no business whatsoever getting into a boxing ring not only with this particular opponent, but with any halfway decent professional, and indeed any top amateur. He is not just out of his depth, he is woefully out of his depth. He lacks speed, footwork, reflexes, and lateral movement, while his technique is that of precisely what he is - a rank novice. Thus this is not the greatest sporting event in history, as the overblown hype would have us believe, it is the greatest sporting con in history.

Why do people think Mayweather has requested 8oz gloves for the fight? It is because he knows he is up against an opponent who will be lucky to land a glove on him, and whom he will play with until he decides to bring this farce of a contest to a conclusion.

In fact the best and most competitive aspect of the fight is taking place now, before they even meet in the ring, with the trash talking and all of the controversy involving Malignaggi. Here, you do have to hand it to Conor McGregor; he is box office and does make for compelling viewing. This, rather than his boxing skills, is why we are getting this fight. Moroever, the way he left Paulie Malignaggi looking like a fool proves that he's no mug when it comes to mind games either.

Speaking of which, what did Malignaggi believe he was getting into in agreeing to work with the Irishman in the first place? You almost get the impression that the former world champion was looking to make friends with the guy, maybe see if some of his stardust might rub off on him. Whatever his reasoning, the fact he went into McGregor's camp fat and out of shape after being retired for four months bespeaks astounding arrogance suffused with idiocy. He made a mistake, got turned over for his trouble, and should have walked away and refrained from the verbal histrionics which he's engaged in day after day afterwards.

Whether it was a knockdown or a pushdown, whether Malignaggi got the better of him in or sparring or not, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that McGregor looked awful in those two video clips of him sparring Malignaggi, which does not bode well considering that those clips were obviously released because his camp believed he looked good in them. Are they having a laugh? During his media workout, he worked the heavy bag like a fitness guy who had decided to give it a go at the end of his regular workout to see how it felt. His technique was all over the place - hands far too wide apart, head static, every second punch an arm punch, hooks way too wide, reflexes and combinations slow and ponderous.

A mantra very much in vogue in the world of pro boxing nowadays is, "If it makes dollars it makes sense." Maybe so, but integrity is also important, and without it you merely hollow out the sport, shredding its credibility and damaging its reputation. Mayweather couldn't give a shit about any of that stuff, of course, and in his eyes why should he? In his eyes he is boxing, bigger than any fighter who's gone before, bigger than the sport itself. However for the rest of us mere mortals, boxing remains the noble art, the sweet science, the sport that more than any other provides a distillation of the human condition and a reminder of our evolutionary and primal roots. As such, boxing deserves better.

Mayweather vs McGregor has turned the sport into a circus and a freak show, wherein the emphasis is on creating a spectacle rather than on honest and true competition.

This fight is a disgrace to the sport and its history, to the legion of great warriors and champions that have gone before.

Mayweather vs McGregor is a celebration of vulgarity and greed

We knew it was going to be vulgar. What we did not anticipate was that it would be ‘this’ vulgar.

The opening press conference of a scheduled four city tour to sell Mayweather vs McGregor on August 26 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas kicked off at the Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles earlier this week, where 20,000 fans were whipped up into a frenzy over the spectacle of two of the highest profile athletes in their respective sports, boxing and MMA, coming together for the first time to promote their upcoming non-title bout, set to take place under Marquis of Queensberry – i.e. boxing - rules.

This is not a serious fight. It is not even an event. Instead it is a spectacle of unfettered vulgarity and greed that has little if anything to do with sport. As such, the decision of the World Boxing Council (WBC) to sanction the fight brings that organisation into disrepute.

Amid the obligatory pyrotechnics, booming Hip-Hop, and promo films of both fighters training and talking trash, Conor McGregor appeared onstage first to a blast of his by now signature ring song, The Foggy Dew. For those who don’t know, this is a song that was written to commemorate the men of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin - men who rose up, arms in hand, to free Ireland from British colonial rule. The Ireland they fought and died for in 1916 is most assuredly not the country represented by a multi-millionaire who flashes money and wealth around like a latter day pimp, dressed in tailor made suits with the words ‘fuck you’ embroidered all over them, as he did at this press conference in LA. On the contrary, it is a perverse distortion of everything they fought for and an indictment of the values that dominate the country a century later.

As for Mayweather, what can be said that hasn’t been said already? In the ring there is no arguing the sublime skillset and sheer winning mentality of one of the all time greats of the squared circle. Outside the ring, we are talking a man who has succeeded in making a dollar bill seem like the most disgusting thing in the world. When he isn’t cavorting around shopping malls weighed down with more jewellry than Liberace, he’s flaunting one of the fleet of monstrously expensive vehicles he owns, always while surrounded by an entourage of flunkies and sycophants whose every smile is bought and paid for.

At one point onstage at the Staples Center Mayweather called over one of those flunkies, who duly arrived bearing a backpack, which no doubt cost more than what the average person in the crowd earns in a month.
Mayweather reached into the backpack and pulled out a check, which he boasted was for $100 million, flashing it aloft while assuring the crowd he is yet to touch it he’s so rich. The crowd whooped and hollered in response, intoxicated with the vicarious thrill of watching a rich guy flaunt his wealth. This, to be sure, was a glimpse of the moral sickness that feeds the obsession with individual wealth and fame in the land of the free.

Meanwhile, not more than a five minute drive from the Staples Center where this circus was being held, you come to one of the largest colonies of homeless people anywhere in the Western world. They call it Skid Row and it is here where you see the other America, a society with its mask removed, one in which economic failure is treated as a crime and punished accordingly.

The expletive-laden back and forth between both fighters onstage, the synthetic animosity, was acting of the B-movie variety. It failed to compensate for the fact that the entire thing is a joke, a charade, involving two athletes looking to cash in on their fame at the expense of anything resembling the integrity of competition or sport.
While the intimate relationship between big money and professional sport is nowadays a given, there is a line beyond which it becomes a violation of man’s evolutionary development, leading us to ponder if it may not have been better if as a species we had remained in caves eating grass.

It doesn’t have to be this way. When the great Cuban amateur heavyweight Teofilo Stevenson was offered millions to face Muhammad Ali in the 1970s, he turned it down, saying, ‘What is a million dollars compared to the love of 8 million Cubans?”
The only chance Conor McGregor has of laying a glove on Floyd Mayweather when they meet in the ring is if Mayweather allows him to. But by then it will be too late, as professional boxing will have been dragged through the mud with its reputation tarnished — perhaps beyond repair.

Until then we will be forced to suffer the antics of two very rich and very vulgar clowns prancing around to Hip-Hop music, dressed in garish outfits spouting profanities and epithets at one another.
Like the proverbial car crash, you cannot help but watch it unfold.
End.